Counting your customers is an important performance
indicator for shopping centres as they map retail trends and configure their centres for customer needs.
There are many ways of counting your customers, from
handheld counters, through infra red monitors,
and CCTV type cameras with suitable software. But the latest technology
utilises mobile phones. Customer movements are recorded by tracking wi-fi or
network signals given off by phones. The system doesn’t record any information
contained in the actual phones and the service providers say that phone owners
stay completely anonymous. This type of technology was used to estimate crowd
numbers at New Years Eve celebrations and this year’s Moomba festival.
Queen Victoria Market has a counting system but it is described
as being only useful for giving broad guidance to actual customers numbers. When
traders representatives have compared the system’s count with actual hand
counts, it has proved unreliable. But imagine a mobile phone counter that not
only accurately counted customers but also tracked their movement around our complex
maze of entrances, aisles, sheds and halls. Do customers in the top end
actually do the “S” up and down the aisles? How many customers use our car
park? There is much to be learned.